Highlights at Collective Design include remarkable new ceramic works by the emerging South Korean designer Bae Sejin. This is the first time that Bae’s stunning sculptural vessels will be exhibited in New York and it is a debut for his inventive porcelain sculptures in the US. The inspiration for Bae’s creations is the play Waiting for Godot by the Irish avant-garde novelist Samuel Beckett. Sejin describes his vision as following:

“The lapse of time involves duration, repetition, transformation and circulation. It is continuous, repetitive and circular. Working with clay as a natural material is unifying the time of nature and human existence. I think the essentiality of the clay material is the passing of time and I work with this material to reveal the lapse of time through a continuous repetition of labor. This continuing repetition helps me to overcome the alienation of human beings and to discover myself by the super temporal experience. In the boundary of art, a study of the lapse of time is ultimately a study of the human. Samuel Beckett revealed the passing of time in nature in his play Waiting for Godot, in which the two main characters are repeatedly waiting for Godot who never arrives. Beckett’s play becomes the motivation for my work”.

J. Lohmann Gallery will also present extraordinary new bronze sculptures by the celebrated Belgian designer Ann Van Hoey. Ann is internationally well-known for her breathtaking “Origami” earthenware vessels and just recently experimented with bronze. Her new body of work is spectacular: a perfect symphony of design and craftsmanship, characterized by Ann’s distinctive ornamental language.